Being Kayavak

Christopher Call is a technical producer and a former biology editor at Encyclopaedia Britannica. An occasional instructor in environmental science and marine biology at local Chicago colleges, he has been a volunteer marine-mammal and coral-reef diver at Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium for five years. As a guest writer for Advocacy for Animals this week, he introduces us to one of his favorite aquarium friends, whom he affectionately calls “Special K.”

Kayavak is a bit of a flirt. Known as â€œthe sassy oneâ€ to those who work with her, she could be considered normal for an adolescent making the slow, often painful social transition to adulthood. Itâ€™s a typical situation for a teenager, but this case is special. Kayavak is only seven. She also happens to be 11 feet long and to weigh more than 1,000 pounds.

Kayavak is a beluga whale, 1 of 6 at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, and 1 of roughly 30 who are currently in captivity in North America. Some of these whales, like Kayavak, were born in captivity. Others were captured in the wild in an agreement with native Inuit hunters in Canada. Communities there have held the right to hunt limited numbers of belugas in local waters since 1962. A community in Churchill, Man., allowed a few well-known institutions to purchase the rights to some of its hunting quota. Instead of killing the whales, the community captured them for display in captivity. Four of the Sheddâ€™s whales were captured this way between 1984 and 1992.

With the capture of the whales and the opening of the Sheddâ€™s Oceanarium exhibit in 1991 came protests against keeping the whales in captivity. Citing cruelty to animals, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) and other animal-rights organizations have actively campaigned against the exhibit of belugas and other marine mammals by the Shedd and other institutions. Critics have also cited the fragile state of whale populations in the wild. Although the Churchill-area beluga population is stable, other local populations are considered threatened or even endangered, and the export of beluga whales and whale products from Canada has been banned since 1992.

The Shedd has countered that the exhibit serves to educate millions of people about marine mammals and their environment and that the whales are kept in exhibit areas that are many times larger than the law requires. While trainers encourage the whales to engage in natural behaviors that tend to entertain visitors, the whales are not made to perform in the kinds of circus-like shows that other institutions are known for. The Shedd features a strong conservation message in the Oceanarium and other exhibits that promotes the more important efforts to save the animals in the wild. Its ongoing research program has contributed to scientific knowledge of beluga behavior and physiology and has helped to shape international laws protecting wild beluga populations.

Oblivious to the controversy, Kayavakâ€™s mother, Immiayuk, spent eight years at the aquarium before giving birth in 1999. Following a Shedd tradition, the calf was given an Inuit name, â€œKayavak,â€ which means â€œsinging game producing soft echoes.â€ Active and curious, Kayavak thrived under her motherâ€™s nurturing support. Five months later, Immiayuk suddenly became ill. Within hours, she died of erysipelas, a rare bacterial disease also found in wild belugas that comes from the fish they eat. Orphaned long before she would have stopped nursing, Kayavakâ€™s outlook was grim. Only months of around-the-clock efforts by the marine mammal staff at the aquarium enabled her to successfully wean onto a stable adult diet of fish and squid. But all of that attention came at a price: the months of human interaction left Kayavak more comfortable around her trainers than around her fellow whales, who for their part were not very accepting of her either. She was ostracized, chased, and bullied by the other whales for many months before finally being accepted by them.

Seven years later, a not-quite full-grown Kayavak spends her days swimming through the waters of the aquariumâ€™s Oceanarium exhibit. The darker skin of her youth has turned to a light gray (belugas are usually born a dark gray or even brown color that fades as they reach adulthood), although she still sports a distinctive palm-shaped splotch of white on her back. Her mornings are spent teasing the volunteers and staff that prepare her exhibit for the dayâ€™s visitors. Like other whales at the aquarium, her favorite form of attention is having her tongue scratched, and sheâ€™ll go to great lengths to get it. Belugas are often called the canaries of the sea, and Kayavak is no exception. She has a wide assortment of vocalizations, from quiet chirps to deafening squeals and snorts, many of them designed to get the attention of a passing trainer or volunteer diver.

Every morning, Kayavak has her first feeding and training session. With a short toot on a whistle, a trainer will dip a flat plastic â€œtargetâ€ into the water. Each target has a different shape and color pattern, and each whale has a different target. Kayavak swims over to hers, a blue and green â€œbowtie,” and touches it with her mouth. Her reward could be a handful of fish, a scratch on the tongue, a splash of water, or perhaps just a word of encouragement from her trainer. Her remaining interaction with the trainers, which occurs in several sessions each day, allows them to evaluate her health as well as to encourage natural behaviors such as vocalizing and spitting water.

The training sessions also involve feeding. Kayavakâ€™s diet consists of an assortment of thawed restaurant-quality herring, capelin, and squid, some with vitamin supplements to replace nutrients lost when the fish were frozen. During a typical session, she might eat dozens of fish, sometimes consuming 40 pounds a day.

Kayavak often spends time interacting with the Oceanariumâ€™s other inhabitants. She frequently visits a rope-mesh gate that separates her habitat from that of a group of Pacific white-sided dolphins. Kayavak likes to tease the dolphins by spitting out a fish or a piece of squid and then sucking it back into her mouth before they can grab it. The teasing goes both ways, as the dolphins vocalize a retort and Kayavak responds with some loud jaw-popping (the quick snapping shut of the jaws), intended to assert her dominance over her smaller neighbors.

Her interactions with her fellow whales can be similar. As social animals in the wild, belugas have a group hierarchy that they maintain in captivity. Because she is one of the youngest whales, Kayavak is subject to the occasional nip or jaw-pop by older females in the group. These behaviors arenâ€™t dangerous, just mildly aggressive reinforcements designed to keep Kayavak in her place in the hierarchy. In time she will probably do the same, especially as the youngest member of the group, a one-year-old calf named Bella, reaches adolescence in a few years.

Kayavakâ€™s closest childhood companion, Qannik, a male born at the Shedd one year after her, has recently been moved to the Point Defiance Zoo in Tacoma, Wash., where he will be part of a future breeding program. Her new favorite playmate is Naluark, a large, older male that has taken to courting Kayavak from time to time. Within the next several years, as she approaches social maturity, Naluarkâ€™s advances will probably result in Kayavakâ€™s first pregnancy. The infant mortality rate for belugas is high, both in captivity and in the wild, and this is especially true for first-time mothers, who may lack the biological and behavioral ability to properly care for newborn calves. Although the Shedd Aquarium boasts a state-of-the-art medical facility and an experienced veterinary and training staff, the health of Kayavakâ€™s first calf is not assured.

But itâ€™s likely that Kayavak will have the opportunity to give birth several times. As a captive animal, she is exposed to far fewer dangers than her wild cousins, who are killed not only by hunting (by humans and other predators) but also by disease and pollution. Since the deaths of her mother and two other whales who succumbed to an alergic reaction to a common veterinary drug in 1989, the adult belugas at the Shedd have had a clean bill of health.

Just where she spends those years is another matter. As one of the Shedd Aquariumâ€™s many research, education, and conservation efforts, it is a member of the North American Beluga Breeding Cooperative, a collection of institutions around the country that work to promote successful breeding efforts in captivity. With a healthy and growing beluga population, the Shedd might be obliged to send Kayavak to an institution where her reproductive potential is in greater need. But for the volunteers and staff that have had a chance to interact with Kayavak, and the millions of visitors she has enchanted over the years, the hope is that Chicago will be her home for a long time to come.

6 Comments

SO. Let me get this right. An entire lifetime of slavery. So little sally and grandma on their way to the other exhibits can see it for 10 seconds.

Aquariums should be ashamed of themselves. Its obvious these are highly intelligent mammals. For these folks to assume that they are enjoying their captivity because they are born with a happy face is a farce.

What the likes of SHEDDS should be contributing to is EDUCATION. REAL EDUCATION. That these poor sweet intelligent animals are born looking happy. BUT probably they would not enjoy being maulled by people who want to ‘ride them’ or use them for circus tricks.

You think its educational to keep something in chains and call it endangered??? Endangered and DISRESPECTED, apparently.

You respect this endangered animal? Help it in its natural habitat. Not by capturing and enslaving it.

I’m dismayed at your response. Although you’re clearly passionate about these animals (which I admire and respect), I wonder how much you actually know about them, or how much of the article you actually read.

Although I can’t speak for other institutions, I can safely say that none of the belugas at the Shedd (or any of their other animals for that matter), are kept in chains, maulled, ridden, or used for circus tricks. If you want to engage in a knowledgeable debate on the possibility that keeping animals in captivity is inherently unjust, then I’d be happy to listen. But don’t accuse the people that work there of cruelty, malice or exploitation. Baseless and untrue accusations like that undermine your cause and mine.

From first-hand experience, I’ve seen nothing but hard work, dedication, and love towards those animals from the staff that work there. They’ve sacrificed far more lucrative careers to do what they do, at a place that is itself a non-profit institution, built by the people of Chicago with a mission of education and inspiration.

Their hope, my hope, and hopefully yours, is that we will all care enough about these animals to ensure their ongoing survival and health in the wild. “Little Sally and Grandma” are exactly the people who need to see animals like Kayavak; even if it is, as you say, for ten seconds. In seeing them they’ll get to know them, in knowing them they’ll come to love them, and in loving them they’ll work to protect them.

Do you notice the whales exhibiting stereotypical behavior? It just seems that being in an enclosure–even though it’s larger than legally mandated–is still a far cry from the natural habitat of this whale which can span thousands of miles.

Not to mention that these whales will be around the same few individuals their whole lives and miss out on a rich social environment.

I love learning about ocean life. I used to love visiting the Shedd, but I stopped after the addition of the oceanarium. I just find it depressing now.

People who are truly interested in learning and convservation would not be drawn to such an exhibit, in my very humble opinion.

I can get pretty depressed myself watching a leopard constantly pacing back and forth in its enclosure, or seeing a chimpanzee bang against the same spot on a wall for hours on end. I don’t feel that way at the Shedd. I don’t see anything that could be described as classicly stereotypical; certainly nothing like the behaviors that large cats, primates, and other mammals tend to display in captivity.

I doubt there is any psychological impact from the size of their exhibit. The belugas at the Shedd occasionally have access to a much larger area that the dolphins typically occupy (not at the same time, though), but tend to prefer their own, smaller area.

On the other hand, I must agree that the environment at the Shedd is not as stimulating as their natural habitat. The staff there are aware of this and make many efforts to add “enrichment” on a daily basis.

I doubt that their social interactions suffer either. There are currently six whales at the Shedd, which falls within in the lower range of normal pod sizes in nature. Larger pods (in the hundreds or more) are not as common.

That said, I believe that social animals like belugas should never kept alone in captivity for long periods. The detrimental psychological effects of isolation in social animals is well documented, and there are many places with solitary social animals that have no business keeping them at all.

I’m admittedly biased, but I don’t think the Shedd falls in that category.

Personally I find that people are interesting creatures. Sometimes we have to be shown something before it has an effect on us. I know many people that don’t care one lick about the tuna debate, until they have seen a real dolphin and realize that the ways that some tuna is caught kills them. Then they see that there are results to their actions, and I’ve seen people that don’t care about oil spills until they’ve seen the animals that are dying from them. Suddenly when you see something happen it becomes real. I don’t know about others but for me zoos and aquariums were what convinced me as a small child that something needed to be done to protect them. I heard the stories of why some of the animals were in these places, and they were stories of humans hurting them or their parents. To me the only reason they were there was to protect them from the harms that man would do to them. We are the problem, not the aquariums and zoos.